


Lot in Life

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotions, F/M, M/M, Pain, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-14
Updated: 2008-11-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry makes a complicated wish</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lot in Life

"I wish I'd never been born."

"You shouldn't say that, Harry, it just might happen!"

"Herm, I've seen It's a Wonderful Life. I know the drill. If I was never born, then Voldemort wouldn't have been defeated that night and the world wouldn't have had thirteen years of peace. Boo hoo for all of them. There's no place like home and all of that. I know the clichés. But sometimes I just wish that I'd never been born. At least not to the Potters."

Hermione pressed her lips together in a disapproving frown, but she didn't try again to tell Harry why he should be grateful for his existence. The topic wasn't entirely a new one for the trio, as Harry had made similar comments once or twice before. This time Ron hadn't even bothered to comment back as he focused on his Potions essay.

o)(o)(o

Later that night, as Harry lay on his bed trying to fall asleep, he heard voices whispering in the darkness. Thinking that they were the voices of his roommates, he tried to ignore them. But they were calling his name.

"Harry. Harrrrrrrrryyy!"

Haunting and soft the voices called. Called to him.

"Yeah?" Harry whispered back.

"Harry." Suddenly the voices were louder, as though they whispered to him from right beside his ear, from within his own curtains. Though only one word was spoken, voices chorused together in harmony. "We are here for you, Harry."

"What?" Harry asked a bit stupidly, already half asleep.

"What you told your friend is not completely correct."

"What I told…"

"Your friend. About Voldemort reigning in terror for years had you not been born."

Finally catching on, Harry propped himself up on one elbow in the dark. "Yeah? Are you saying that if I had never been born, then the world would have been all sunshine and roses?"

"Moonlight and Lilies, actually."

"What?"

"Come. Come with us and see."

Harry flopped down on his back again and closed his eyes. "This has to be a dream. Yeah, that's it. I'm already asleep. This is a dream. Well, might as well go along with it."

"Come with us. Come now and see."

"Fine." Harry held his hands out, palms up. "Lead on."

There was a wrenching in his gut, much like a portkey, and Harry felt himself spinning out of control. He closed his eyes against the dizziness and waited for the movement to stop. At last it did, and Harry cautiously opened his eyes.

He was in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing, looking at a slightly younger Poppy Pomfrey. "Alright, dear, you're all done," she said brightly, slipping her wand up her sleeve. Harry took a few steps to the side and saw the patient who had been hidden from his sight before. It was his mum - or at least, he assumed she was his mum. She had wavy red hair and green eyes the exact same shade as his. She also had a patch of bright orange burn paste on her arm.

"Thanks, Madame Pomfrey!" Lilly replied, scooping up the robe that was laying beside her. It was then that Harry noticed that she was wearing Muggle jeans and a light jumper with the sleeves rolled up.

"You are more than welcome, dear," Madame Pomfrey replied. "So, other than the occasional cauldron accident," Pomfrey raised one eyebrow and nodded towards the arm covered in burn paste, "how are you and James settling in to your new home?"

"The fidelius charm - Godrick's Hollow," Harry said.

"No," the voices whispered. "They have a home in Hogsmeade. Lily will be teaching Muggle Studies this coming school year."

"Why aren't they in hiding?" Harry asked, annoyed. Didn't Dumbledore care about their safety? Hadn't he warned them about the prophesy?"

"What prophesy?" The voices asked. "Lily isn't pregnant. There is no child about to be born who could defeat the Dark Lord, so there is no reason for him to attack or for them to hide."

If Harry wasn't born, then James and Lily wouldn't be hiding - they wouldn't be protected. But then again, Harry realized, they wouldn't need protection. Voldemort would have no reason to come after them personally, and if they were living at Hogwarts, then Pettigrew would have nothing of importance to tell his master.

"Exactly," the voices purred.

There was another lurching tug and Harry again closed his eyes against the sensation. When he opened them again, he was on the front lawn of the castle. It was dark, with only a half-moon and the Hogwarts windows illuminating the scene, but then the front doors were thrown open.

It was then that Harry realized that some of the things he had taken for shadows were actually cloaked people - Death Eaters. When the doors opened, they all scurried back, away from the light. Dumbledore stepped out onto the steps, all the teachers behind him. Lily and Remus were nowhere to be seen, but Harry saw James and Sirius, and even Peter Pettigrew standing amongst the teachers and some others who had to be Order members.

The two groups met with a clash of spells flying and voices shouting. Colored spells streaked through the night, adding to the light and bathing faces and masks in blue, red, orange, yellow, purple, and green.

Curious as to where his mother was while her husband was fighting, Harry walked up the steps and into the castle. There, standing in the center of a runic symbol, facing each other with clasped hands, were Lily and Remus. Both of them had their eyes closed, and they were chanting something in a language that Harry couldn't understand.

"They were able to continue their work for the last year and a half without interruption," the voices informed Harry, "and so they finally managed to complete the key to the Order's plan."

Harry was about to ask them what the plan was when the volume of noise around him increased. Without warning, several wizards burst into the Great Hall. Harry recognized the other three Marauders, and Kingsley, and a woman he thought was Andromeda from her resemblance to Sirius and Bellatrix. They were fighting against over a dozen Death Eaters, and for the most part the Order Members were holding up well.

Peter Pettigrew worked his way towards the door, and Harry thought he was about to run away, when a beam of green jolted into him. It had come from outside, so Harry couldn't even tell which side had fired the shot, but he had a suspicion that it was either Voldemort of Dumbledore, repaying the spy for his role in the attack.

A moment later a chill swept through the room and everyone but Harry shivered. The chill was followed by a figure dressed in all black, with bright red eyes and pale skin. He wasn't the Voldemort Harry knew, appearing more human with his shock of black hair and his strait nose, but there was no mistaking who the figure had to be.

"Pathetic," he said as he stepped over Pettigrew's corpse, his voice as sibilant as Harry remembered from the night in the graveyard.

Through all the fighting, Lily and Remus had not paused in their chanting, though Sirius and James had moved into protective stances between them and the Dark Lord.

Remus and Lily suddenly raised their voices, practically shouting the last line of their chant. "…requietem abscenstia malfesis burkesstes, absconcias prowess ticcasium abscenstia!" A beam of orange light shot up from their joined hands, bathing the room in a fiery glow.

Remus and Lily both opened their eyes at the same instant, and, with their far hands still tightly clasped together, both shot out their near arms directly at Voldemort. The orange glow seemed to draw in around them for a moment before it shot out at the Dark Lord, enveloping him in a glowing field.

"It's a powerful spell," the voices whispered to Harry, "created by Remus and Lily just for this purpose. It will separate the Dark Lord from his power, rendering him vulnerable."

Voldemort looked amused, as though he didn't believe that whatever the orange light was could possibly hurt him. "And what do you hope to accomplish by this pathetic light show?" he sneered.

Lily and Remus grinned - vicious, victorious, grins. "Infamere," they spoke in unison.

For a moment, it looked as though nothing had happened, but then a light began to build at Voldemort's chest. It was dark at first, bubbling out of his robes, but then a stream of pure white energy shot through. The moment it connected to the orange globe, both shifted into a pale gold color, and the light streamed faster and faster out of Voldemort.

After a long moment, during which everyone on the Great Hall, good and dark alike, seemed to hold their breath, the light stopped flowing from the Dark Lord. The golden globe pulsed once, and upon that cue, the four Gryffindors raised their wands.

"Avada Kedavra!" four voices shouted in unison. Four beams of green light emerged from their wands and mingled in the air, twisting until there was only one large beam of glowing emerald that bathed the entire hall in a ghastly glow. The combined Avada Kedavra curse sped through the air, burst through the golden bubble without affecting it, and then slammed into Voldemort.

For another moment, it appeared as though nothing had changed, but then, without a sound, Voldemort slowly toppled to the floor. His actions were mimicked by the four Marauders, who all collapsed in exhaustion. As though a movie was being un-paused, the golden globe pulsed once more, and then shattered into an infinite number of little pieces that soaked into the floor and walls of Hogwarts. The Death Eaters that remained in the Great Hall immediately started fighting again, most of them aiming at the prone Marauders, but Kingsley and Andromeda finished them off quickly.

Then they rushed to the sides of their fellow Order members, reviving the new heroes of the wizarding world.

Harry felt that portkey tugging sensation and then he was in Snape's lab in the dungeons. "The day that Quirrell brought Voldemort into the school for the first time, in your timeline." The voices informed Harry.

Sirius and Remus were hugging Lily and all three seemed to be excited about something. Then, Sirius disentangled himself from the hug and cautiously approached Snape. Severus glared at him, but the animagus wasn't deterred and he threw his arms around the Potions Master.

"Get off me!" Snape growled.

Sirius held the hug for a second longer before releasing the dour man. "Thank you - thank both of you!" he said, tears in his eyes. "I know you were trying to improve the Wolfsbane, but this…"

"A cure." Remus added quietly, still gripping Lily tightly. "I never would have believed it. Thank you so much."

There was another sharp tug and Harry was in the Professor's Wing of Hogwarts. He heard loud voices coming from the door on his right and, without thinking about it, walked through the door and into the Professor quarters.

Sirius was on a rug in front of the fireplace, roughhousing with some children. Harry could see from their features that at least two of the five had to be Potters. One boy had James and Harry's messy hair, and the youngest girl had Lily's emerald eyes, partially hidden by thick glasses.

"Rose, Violet, James, time for bed." Lily appeared in one of the doorways in Harry's line of sight, smiling at the sight in front of her.

Both girls disentangled themselves from the dogpile, but none of the boys moved. "But mummy…" the one with James' hair started to protest.

"But mummy me nothing." Lily said. Her voice was stern, but Harry could see the smile in her eyes. "I said you could stay up an extra hour to play with Uncle Sirius and has been almost two. Now you are coming to bed, young man."

"Awwww!" Despite his protest, the boy pushed himself up and crossed to his mother.

"I suppose it is time for us to go as well then," Sirius said, hauling himself to his feet. The two remaining boys followed his lead, nodding politely to Lily.

"Goodnight Aunt Lily," they chorused.

"Night, 'Lil." Sirius gave her a one-armed hug before herding the boys out of the room. As they passed Harry, he noticed that both boys had gold-flecked eyes, just like Remus.

"Former werewolves," the voices supplied, even as the scene started to fade around the edges. "Remus and Sirius adopted them after they were given the cure."

"Why show me this night?" Harry asked, a small part of him hating the children that had the family he had always wanted.

"This is the night of His rebirth. In your timeline, at least," the voices whispered. "We knew you would want to be sure that he really was never coming back."

"So you had to show me this scene?" Harry demanded, "You couldn't just show me the empty graveyard, or Dumbledore, or something else? Why this? Why are you tormenting me with this perfect little family picture? Why the hell was I even born and put through everything I went through if this is what it could have been like?"

There was a long pause, and then, at last, the chorused voices spoke. "Because you just so happened to be born."

Before Harry could absorb that thought, the voices spoke again, this time virtually stumbling over the words in their haste to get them out. "You are one of those souls whose lot in life is only suffering. They are few and far between, but they exist. Your soul can never see forward from a point of divergence into the path of hope. Only once the divergence has passed can you look back and see how things might once have been."

Harry thought about that for a moment. In some cruel twist of fate, he was destined to live only to suffer, and to watch others suffer needlessly. It was a worse existence than spending the rest of his life locked up in his cupboard or in one of Voldemort's cells. Especially now that he knew the truth.

"Can I go back? Can I choose not to be born?" he asked.

"It is possible," the voices replied, "but such a thing comes at a great cost."

Briefly the thought crossed his mind that this could be a trick, but Harry shoved it away. The sight of Sirius, still young and laughing with a group of children was haunting him. "Fuck the cost. I want to go back."

"Then give us your soul," the voices purred.

"Deal." Harry thought for a brief second of sealing the deal with a handshake, but the voices had no hands, and before he could wonder if there was anything else he needed to do, he was enveloped in blackness.

For a split second he saw the red curtains of the bed he had been laying in, and then he heard a cruel chuckle.

A flash of green.

A whisper of haunting words and half hummed lullebies.

The cry of a newborn.

A bright white light.

The Lotted Ones watched happily, their numbers recently increased by one, as the front doors of Hogwarts burst open. The newest Lotted One watched with his fellows, as four young Order Members hugged for what could be the last time before two of them stepped into a painted circle on the floor and the other two drew their wands. Had he retained a physical body, he would have smiled at the sight. At seeing a fate avoided.


End file.
